Page 66 of Love Unscripted
A flash of pain crossed her face.
“If one investment failed, he’d pull money from somewhere else to keep everything looking stable. Sometimes he replaced it. Sometimes he couldn’t.”
“And the taxes?” Aaron asked carefully.
She let out a slow breath.
“He stopped paying them.”
Aaron’s eyes widened slightly.
“I didn’t know,” she said quickly. “I thought everything was filed properly. I thought all of that was being handled.”
She paused briefly, gathering the memory into words.
“Then one day, shortly after I turned twenty-three, a friend approached me about investing in a business venture with her. It wasn’t even some massive deal. Just a small lifestyle company she and her brother were trying to launch.” A faint smile touched her mouth. “For the first time in my life, I decided I wanted to handle something myself.”
Aaron listened quietly.
“My parents were overseas on some romantic getaway at the time. I remember thinking, I’m an adult. I don’t need to run every financial decision through my father.”
Her expression darkened slightly.
“So I contacted the bank myself because I needed documentation for the transfer.”
“What happened?”
“At first, nothing dramatic,” she said. “That’s the strange part. The assistant I spoke to just sounded… confused.”
Aaron frowned slightly.
“She kept putting me on hold,” Camille continued. “Then she asked if I was calling about my personal account or one of the holding accounts.”
“I didn’t even know what she meant by that.”
Aaron’s brow furrowed.
“I told her it was my main account. The one my earnings went into. And she went quiet for a second.”
Camille swallowed.
“Then she said the balance available was much lower than expected because several large transfers had recently gone out.”
Aaron stared at her. “Transfers to where?”
“I had no idea.”
Her voice softened.
“I honestly thought there had been some mistake. Fraud maybe. I remember laughing nervously and saying, ‘No, there must be an error. My father manages my accounts.’”
She looked away.
“And the woman on the phone said something like, ‘Yes, ma’am, Mr. Carlucci authorized the transfers.’”
A silence stretched briefly between them.
“That was the first crack,” Camille said quietly. “Not even the money itself. Just the realization that things were happening with my finances that I knew absolutely nothing about.”
